The Dota 2 community’s effort to break the prize pool record yet again for The International 8 (TI8) continues to see success after hitting an incredible total after just 12 days.
Every year Dota 2’s “The International” reaches staggering figures thanks to crowdfunding, making it the most lucrative tournament in all of esport.
The initial prize pool starts at $1,600,000 but a total of 25 percent of all Battle Pass, or compendium, sales are added to the total every year to help The International hit ridiculous figures.
In 2017 the total raised was $24,787,916 which is significantly more than the prize pools for a number of major sporting events, including The Open in Golf.
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2018 looked like it was going to be another record breaking year when the total hit an incredible $5 million just 24 hours after the Battle Pass sales went live, and it hasn’t slowed down much ever since.
On May 20th the total ticked over the $10 million mark for the first time after just 12 days, meaning that it is still on track for beating the 2017 total with 97 days still remaining for Battle Pass purchases.
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10 MILLION!! — 40% of the way there. Another 97 days to go. #TI8 pic.twitter.com/qfGGWKaJgf
— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) May 21, 2018
The Battle Pass gives players access to a number of TI8 features created by Valve specifically for the event and includes cosmetics, exclusive game modes, and much more.
This year’s biggest draw seems to the Mutation Mode which is a unique matchmaking queue which is different every time thanks to a variety of modifiers ranging from a random spell being cast on everyone, every minute, to friendly fire where all spells and abilities also hit teammates.
With so many days left for more features to be added to the Battle Pass, and with the way things are already going, 2018 looks set to be yet another record breaking year for the Dota 2 comunity and Valve.